EU Proposes to Outlaw Commercial Fishing Discards

EU fisheries reform would 'privatise oceans'

The European Commission is planning to reform the EU's fishing industry by giving vessels quota shares guaranteed for periods of at least 15 years. The commission will issue a proposal on reforming the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in July, to take effect in 2013.

But a draft obtained by BBC News outlines moves that some environmentalists describe as "virtual privatisation of the oceans". Final decisions on fishing quotas will stay with politicians, not scientists.

The 28-year-old CFP is intended to keep catches within sustainable limits, but has often been criticised for doing the opposite.

One of the central planks of the proposed reforms is to eliminate discards.

Currently, up to half the catch of some species has to be discarded because vessels have exceeded their quota, or because the fish are undersized.

In the new scheme, boats would have to land all the fish they caught, and the whole catch would count against quotas...

The central problem with commercial fishing is "The Tragedy of the Commons"; the incentive of people sharing a  common resource to overuse it the point of collapse.  Allocating shares of catch to particular fishermen based on past performance, and linking those shares to the health of the stock encourages the fishermen to respect the stock.  This approach has been reasonably successful in a number of places, including the Alaskan Crab Fisheries (aka the Deadliest Catch) and some parts of the Maine Lobster fishery (self managed areas around some islands).

The idea of imposing a complete ban on discards is going to be difficult for commercial fisherman to accept, but it may be the only way to control the incredible waste that comes with netting on a massive scale.  They will either learn to manage the fishing in a way to catch the size numbers that can be sustainable, or they will be cut off when they exceed the quota of some by catch. species.